Canadian Occupational Safety

30 Canadian Occupational Safety www.cos-mag.com UP G ary Anderson was delivering drywall to a construction site in New Jersey almost exactly one year ago. The independent con- tractor for a trucking company was leaning into a car window to speak with someone and, when he pulled his head out, he was struck by a tape measure and died. A worker on the 50th fl oor of the project was unfas- tening the 1-pound tape measure from his work belt when it slipped out of his hands, ricocheted off a piece of con- struction metal about 10 feet above the ground and hit Anderson. Objects falling from heights are a huge safety concern. In 2013, there were 8,609 injuries from workers being struck by falling objects, and 23 were fatal, representing 2.5 per cent of all fatalities, according to the Association of Workers' Compensation Boards of Canada. Concussions, lacerations and puncture wounds are just some of the injuries that can ensue. "I think it happens more frequently than people realize," says Lou LeB- lanc, owner of BuildSafe Construction Safety Services in Cambridge, Ont. This issue is a particular concern in the construction industry and is easily among the top fi ve hazards on any site, says Nate Bohmbach, senior project manager at Ergodyne in St. Paul, Minn. In the United States, struck by objects — which include objects falling from heights — are responsible for 10.1 per cent of deaths in the construction industry, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The types of objects that commonly fall are hand-held radios; hard hats; small tools, such as tape measures, wrenches and pliers; pieces of con- crete; and nuts and bolts. To determine what kind of force can be generated by an object fall- ing from heights, calculations can be done around the physics of gravity. For example, an 8-pound wrench dropped 200 feet would hit with a force of 2,833 pounds per square inch (or the equivalent of a Clydesdale horse hit- ting a 1-square inch area). "I even heard of a case where a blunt object hit somebody's arm and it sepa- rated their shoulder," says Bohmbach. The shape of the object also deter- mines the severity of the outcome. When a 2-pound hammer drops from 3 metres onto a hard hat, it won't do very much; however, a 2-pound sleever bar (which looks like a long spike) dropped the same distance would punch through the hard hat and go into the skull. In one case, a man was walking across a stadium fi eld in Tampa, Fla., when ironworkers in the rafters dropped a spud wrench (a tool with a spike on one end and a wrench on the other) and it went through his shoul- der and lung and into his stomach, recalls Mark Caldwell, director of fall protection for tools at Capital Safety, who is based in Woodstock, Ga. "I was telling that story at a nuclear deconstruction site and this lady stood up and held up her shirt on her side… and you could see a scar about an inch and a half wide and she turned around and showed me the corresponding scar and said someone dropped a sleever bar and it hit a rail and came directly through her completely and she was out of work for two-and-a-half years," says Caldwell. While the most obvious person at risk when objects are dropped is the one underneath, the person using the item can be at risk as well. "Let's say a worker dropped their hammer. Their gut reaction is to try and snatch that hammer back before it ends up falling and that could throw somebody off balance," says Bohmbach. "(Or) that dropped object could fall from a worker's hand to the platform they are working on and a worker behind them could come by and trip over it." Aside from injuries to workers, dropped objects can cause other damages and incur additional costs for a company. The dropped object itself may be damaged or lost if it is dropped into water, mud, machinery, down hole or another diffi cult-to- reach place. Whatever the dropped object hits below will be damaged, ranging from the equipment, the structure itself or a parked car. "Little bits of concrete the size of a whiteout bottle are falling off the edges (of buildings) quite frequently," says LeBlanc. "This happens all the time and they just quietly pay for windshields and damage to vehicles. We don't hear about it. It's a cost of the job." HEADS Objects falling from heights on construction sites lead to gruesome injuries By Amanda Silliker it ends up falling and that could While the most obvious person at risk when objects are dropped is the

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